{"id":1499,"date":"2017-01-01T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2019-10-06T13:07:34","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T17:07:34","slug":"resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2017\/01\/01\/resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to\u00a0the full service<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 2: 1-12<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to listen to the meditations\u00a0only<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, I was given a precious gift.\u00a0 The gift was given following a pastoral visit, in which a woman mentioned that she had written a journal entry about her first time in worship, in our church.\u00a0 With some trepidation, not knowing what it might hold, I tentatively asked if she would sometime give me a copy, which sometime later she did.\u00a0 She gave me the copy about nine months later, on the day she joined the church.\u00a0 In a moment, I am going to read you the journal entry.\u00a0 I have permission to do so, and have done so in other (mostly teaching) settings.\u00a0 The author died two years ago, after many years of faithful service and membership in that church.\u00a0 She was an individual, a real person, very different, somewhat zany, a hoot.\u00a0 She led for decades the church\u2019s bell choir, named \u2018Hell\u2019s Bells\u2019.\u00a0 I bring her journal entry because, for her, finding a place and way to worship, a church family to love, and church home to enjoy, was simple salvation, connection, empowerment, meaning, belonging, the alphabet of grace and the winning experience of love.\u00a0 Have you found a church family to love and church home to enjoy?\u00a0 Have you found a burning fire, a hearth before which to warm, to wonder, to pray, to pause, to listen, to learn?<\/p>\n

This week with one son and one son-in-law, I sat before a beautiful hearth, and a roaring fire.\u00a0 Let me add that both son and son-in-law are solid citizens, if I may, the former, a hiker and camper, an attorney and church lay leader, the latter a PhD from Princeton, a senior minister and an Eagle Scout.\u00a0 They know about fires, starting and feeding and tending them, is what I mean.\u00a0 Yet, in that evening, one asked, \u2018Is this fire real, or is it gas fed?\u2019\u00a0 Because the fire was so well built, 2 logs by 2 logs by 2, and because it burned so cleanly in the venerable, hearth\u2014a kind of perfected beauty\u2014it did resemble what has become, sadly, the norm in public hearths, gas not wood.\u00a0 So, the question, I am emphasizing, was not out of place.\u00a0 But the fire was real.\u00a0 I had been there earlier to see it built and lit and fed.\u00a0 I have age, more winters on the back, more time around fires.\u00a0 And, I love a beautiful hearth and roaring flame in it.\u00a0 The fire was for real.\u00a0 Yet, the next morning, the other asked, \u2018is it really for real?\u2019\u00a0 Come and see, was all I could say.<\/p>\n

Come and see is all I say today, for this New Year\u2019s sermon.\u00a0 That fire you admire, that worship service burning and blazing, which you hear over the radio, or on the internet, or which you admire from afar, or of which someone has told you\u2014it is for real.\u00a0 It is.\u00a0 Come and stand closer.\u00a0 You will feel it.\u00a0 Your life needs, demands, requires, and will open up in warmth before such a sturdy fireplace.\u00a0 Come and see.\u00a0 Kings to the brightness of his rising did come, long ago.\u00a0 To worship.\u00a0 Worship.\u00a0 Somewhere.\u00a0 It need not be here.\u00a0 But somewhere.<\/p>\n

Have you no 2017 resolution?\u00a0 Here is one:\u00a0 go to church.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 For the mystery of the burning fire.\u00a0 For its beauty and warmth.\u00a0 For its darkness lit by the licking flames.\u00a0 For its allure, its millennia old draw, its gathered people.\u00a0 For the different women and men whom you will find\u2014a group not a part of your extended family, not a part of your familiar neighborhood, not a part of your workplace, not a part of your cyber network.\u00a0 A woman, hymnal in one hand and baby in the other, rocking in the fourth pew, here, on Christmas Eve, singing the Carols.\u00a0 A man, alone in the balcony, wrestling off the dark difficulties of life.\u00a0 A colorful family with squirming children.\u00a0 A widow, grieving, whose grief is unlike any other, as every grief is unlike any other.\u00a0 A preacher trying for both honesty and kindness, both truth and love.\u00a0 A choir giving it their all, all the time.\u00a0 A table set, as today, with remembrance, thanksgiving, and presence; with faith and hope and love.\u00a0 You don\u2019t believe?\u00a0 Worship until you believe it, then worship because you believe it. (John Wesley\u2019s admonishment to preachers). It will come, over time, believe me.\u00a0 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.\u00a0 And guess what?\u00a0 If this is your resolution, you have already started to live it!\u00a0 Here you are, today, listening by the internet or radio, or seated in the pew, or wandering the back rooms, narthex, hallways and byways of the chapel.\u00a0 Have you no 2017 resolution?\u00a0 Here is one:\u00a0 go to church.\u00a0\u00a0 Thirty years ago, one did so\u2026<\/p>\n

(The preached sermon at this point concluded with the journal recollection of a first time visit to a church, by a woman who later joined that church:\u00a0 the detailed journal piece remembered what it feels like to be new, in a new place, unknown to others (regulars in any church need steady reminder of this) and remembered the sheer joy one finds when finally, in person, one discovers a church family to love and church home to enjoy (those listening and participating only by radio\\internet need steady invitation to this)).<\/p>\n

– The Reverend Doctor, Robert Allan Hill, Dean.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to listen to\u00a0the full service Matthew 2: 1-12 Click here to listen to the meditations\u00a0only Thirty years ago, I was given a precious gift.\u00a0 The gift was given following a pastoral visit, in which a woman mentioned that she had written a journal entry about her first time in worship, in our church.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1909,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}